12/24/08 Young Farmer and Rancher, Bagley

Victor, Idaho is the only place Steve Bagley has known; he grew up there on a beef dairy farm and it's where he and wife and fulltime nurse Heather are raising their daughters. STEVEN "Our operation mainly consisted of a dairy farm and we run a lot of beef cattle. But over the past ten years we've had to switch that operation to survive. We've changed it from strictly agriculture to more of a recreation type business. We do raise elk, take trail rides and pack trips in the national forests around us but we do still maintain our agriculture base because that is the lifeblood of our whole operation. We are down to about 500 acres of hay and we sell that mainly to the horse hay market in Jackson or feed the rest to our own animals. What's happened is we have had a big change from agriculture to more of a residential area. So we have a gravel pit with a lot of trucking and excavation work on the side. It fits the niches that we need to fall into when we don't have other agricultural work to do." Steve and Heather Bagley, District Two Young Farmer and Rancher Family of the Year. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott